Remembering Her
by sjshark23
Summary: An old friend of Ember McLain reminisces on how he knew her and what happened in the days before she died. Based on some background info I read the other day. Oneshot, rated T to be safe, may change depending on reaction. Minor edits made on 2/7/2012


** If you're reading this, you've found my first _Danny Phantom_ fanfic. I personally prefer writing Pokémon stories, but after running across the DP episode "Fanning the Flames" and reading a creator's idea of Ember McLain's story, this idea came to me and I felt I had to get it down on paper. So, here it is, and hopefully it's alright! Fingers crossed and here we go!**

** N.B.: The name Anna, which I'm using for Ember McLain's human/offstage persona, was the first name that came to my mind while I was drafting this. Please don't get mad at me about it!**

**2/7-Update: I made a few minor edits to make the ending clearer, but everything else is the same.  
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**Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership to _Danny Phantom_; _Danny Phantom _is the property of Nickelodeon, Butch Hartman and Frederator Studios.**

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><p><strong> REMEMBERING HER<strong>

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><p><em> It's been so long since she died...I thought she'd gone forever.<br>_

Recently, I experienced something that brought all the dark memories of those two days, all those years ago, come racing back. A few months after me, my wife and two girls moved to Amity Park, some new rock diva had captivated the nation with a chillingly familiar song. My older daughter had gone to her concert that night, and my younger girl convinced me to watch it on TV. As we turned on the set, I saw something I hadn't seen in what felt like a lifetime. A teenaged girl with fire-like electric blue hair and a black leather outfit that my wife would certainly not approve of was preparing to begin the show. The first few bars of her song played, and they hit me like a sledgehammer. As I looked more closely at the screen, I saw a small icon in the corner indicating who was playing the show, and the performer's name shocked me. It was a name I knew. A name I thought had died nearly twenty years ago.

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><p>I remember her vividly, like she was right in front of me now. Her bright green eyes. Her long blonde hair. That smile that, at least to me, couldn't help but draw you in. I was genuinely shocked that the other guys weren't battling it out for her. She was one of the most alluring girls in my year, and she'd have been out of my league but for one small fact: neither of us was that popular.<p>

Anna McLain was one of those people who you either got along with or you didn't. Many didn't. Most girls in our school were aiming to be models or actresses, and so formed their cliques based on that. Anna's big dream, though, was to be a rock star, and she never let anyone forget it. I didn't blame her; her singing voice was like a siren's song, ready to distract you and pull you in, and her guitar skills were as good as, if not better than, most music stars kids my age listened to. She knew she didn't fit in with the Hollywood wannabe crowd, and she didn't try that hard to either. Anna was something of an outcast, and she was proud of it.

I knew the feeling, at least the outcast part; back then, when you were an athlete at our school, the in-crowd basically meant the football team. Because of that, about half the school seemed to consist of the football players and their various hangers-on. But I was a soccer player, and soccer wasn't so popular in those days; so, since I didn't play football, at my school they somehow managed to lump me in with the D&D nerds, the techno-geeks, and for some weird reason, the rockers. It didn't make sense to put rockers in that category because of all the popularity music stars those days had. But I guess if I hadn't been thrown in with those groups, I'd never have run across her.

I still remember the first time I met her. We happened to sit next to each other in homeroom, and for some reason we just hit it off right away. Neither of us was really "in" with the popular kids, so we understood each other there. There was something about her that made not befriending her seem criminal. She had a rebellious, free spirit that I couldn't help but like, even though the teachers thought differently. It didn't hurt that she was one of the better-looking girls among the rockers at the school. We started hanging out together after school, even though most of this time was spent in the late evenings; I had soccer practices in the fall, while she spent half her time in detention.

It was during one time we spent hanging out at her place that she told me the reason for her refusal to throw in with most of the other kids. She explained that she saw a lot of people as posers, doing whatever they could to boost their popularity with the in-crowd. Since she had a lot of contempt towards this idea, she did what she thought was necessary to avoid conformity. She said that staying true to yourself was the key.

_"What you see on the surface_," she had said, "_isn't always accurate. So I go out of my way to keep myself accurate. If what's inside doesn't match up with what's on the outside, you're never going to be happy as yourself. You'll be trying to decide which one to be: the outside or the inside. I try to make it so they're both the same."_

It was that kind of thinking that fueled her. She wasn't afraid to express herself—which manifested itself in her rebellious behavior—but her philosophy of life really came out in her music. When we were both sixteen, she formed a rock band with several other aspiring musicians, and she put her passion to work. Here, she wasn't just the rocker girl who didn't get along well with most others—she was the leader of the band, ready to achieve her dreams. I spent some time with the band and noted how powerful her music was. One song she wrote was so profound and so honest, I sometimes wondered whether she was the alluring rocker I'd come to know so well, or a poet who just happened to put her thoughts to music.

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><p>She developed her onstage persona to be as rebellious as her normal one. For her first real performance, in the summer of our sophomore year, she adopted a rather skimpy leather getup that most parents would cringe at seeing their daughter wearing, put on a ton of makeup, and dyed her hair electric blue. I remember commenting before the show that the way her hair was styled made it look like her head was crowned with blue fire. She loved the idea and that inspired her new stage name Ember. The new look, persona and stage name fit together well, and so "Ember McLain" was born. Her fiery, passionate performance that night couldn't have reflected her personality more perfectly, and I'd never seen her happier. At least for one night, she was living her dream.<p>

But I found the next day that I could barely look at her without feeling sick. It wasn't until I talked to my sister about it that I found out what had happened: I had a crush on Ember McLain. I couldn't believe it. I had never really thought of her that way, but it made sense in a way: she was the only person besides my sister that I could really be honest with, and it didn't hurt that she was so cute as well. Give her credit, my sister helped me come to grips with this and advised me how to proceed.

_"Don't come right out and say it; try to gauge her feelings before you admit anything."_

"_Drop subtle hints, come on too strong and she'll be turned off to you."_

"_Be yourself; from what you've told me about her, she'd want it that way."_

I did what I could to follow my sister's advice, and I spent the whole summer trying to work everything out. Eventually, one day in late September, I finally worked up the nerve to ask her out...and that's when it all went wrong.

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><p>Ember had played a show at the youth centre's Talent Show the night before, and most of the school had been there. The atmosphere had been terrific, and she'd won the top prize hands down. We had just collected our stuff when two football players showed up: Biff Kernighen and his pal Sully. I didn't like Biff at all. He talked faster than a crooked used car salesman, and the fact that he and Sully spend most of their time harassing kids like me made me dislike him even more. Unfortunately, I had a sinking feeling that Ember might have a soft spot for guys like him, and unfortunately I was right.<p>

He shoved me aside, of course, and started chatting her up. He complimented her on the show the night before, and asked her to go with him to the movies that night. Of course she accepted; Biff was one of those guys that made girls slide to the ground whenever he walked by. But something wasn't right; most members of Biff's crowd wouldn't look at Ember twice on a normal day, and I also knew that going out with him would put Ember in with the popular kids, which I knew she would never do. As he left, I couldn't help but glare after him. I didn't trust him, obviously, since it seemed so out of left field, but I decided to wait until later to tell Ember. She seemed so happy that saying something now would only cause trouble. As it turns out, waiting made it worse.

I told her that I didn't trust Biff, and she got really mad at me. She told me that this was the high point of her life, and that I wasn't about to tell her what to do; then she accused me of being jealous of Biff because he beat me to her; that part was sort of true, but I tried to ignore it. I responded that I didn't want to see her get hurt; guys like Biff had the potential to play with a girl's emotions, and I didn't want him to do that to her. Of course, she wouldn't listen, so I decided to leave her alone. I'd done what I could, and what she said was true: I _couldn't_ tell her what to do or talk her out of it. She had made up her mind, and no one, _no one_ was going to tell her otherwise. At the end of the day, she headed off to get ready for her big date, while I just packed up and went home.

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><p>That night was really a blur. I'd be lying if I said Ember's words earlier didn't hurt, but I still cared about her. I told my sister what had happened, and she told me not to worry too much about it: just because some other guy asked her out didn't mean that I had lost her. Still, I couldn't help <em>but<em> worry. I tried my best to relax, but nothing was working; even my homework, which usually conquers my mind, made me think about her. It was only about six in the evening when I finally decided to go to sleep, but the sinking feeling was still there. I was still concerned about Ember and whether Biff might try to mess with her.

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><p>The next day didn't go well. I had woken up late and nearly missed the city bus over to school, but my entire focus was on finding out what went down with Ember and Biff. Ember wasn't there, but that didn't surprise me, since she almost always showed up late. I immediately sought out Biff and asked him how his date with Ember went. He looked at me funny, which made me suspicious, so I asked the same question again. When he didn't answer the second time I started working on Sully, which took longer; Sully wasn't the sharpest fellow around.<p>

_"Biff always brags about stuff to you, right, Sully? How'd his big _date_ go last night?"_

Eventually Sully gave me an answer that made me want to put Biff through the roof right then and there.

_"What date? Biff didn't go on any date last night. He went right home after football practice because he said he had something he needed to deal with. I was with him all day yesterday, and he didn't even mention going out with your friend."_

I knew it. Biff had stood her up! Despite the fact that he was twice my size, I grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him against a locker, ready to knock the daylights out of him.

_"I knew this would happen, you bastard! You asked her out as a joke, didn't you? You had no intention of going out with her, so you thought you'd hang her out to dry instead and humiliate her?" _Now Biff decided to say something, and his response made me even angrier.

_"Alright, I didn't show. Something came up and I didn't think to tell her! I really was going to show up, but I had something to do!"_ I couldn't believe it, but Biff actually looked upset at the accusation, but I let the red mist dominate my thoughts and refused to believe him.

All this time, I couldn't decide who I was angrier at: Biff for standing her up, or myself for not trying hard enough to talk Ember out of going with him. At that point, one of the teachers had to separate us, and the principal gave me a week's worth of detention for fighting. Ember didn't show up to school at all, so I figured she must be sick or something; maybe that was why Biff wasn't with her last night.

Even after school, things went badly. I got ejected from my soccer game that afternoon, mainly because I wasn't focusing properly and slid a bit too hard into somebody's ankle, and we lost big time. Afterward most of the guys on the team wouldn't even look at me, so I bolted the first chance I got. On a whim I decided to pick up a copy of the evening newspaper on my way home from the game, and what I saw in the local news section broke my heart.

_MYSTERIOUS FIRE DOWNTOWN_. That part didn't upset me, since fires were fairly common in the older downtown houses nowadays. It was the actual story that did it. _Entire house burnt down. Cause of fire unknown._ It was really scary, all the way up to the sentence that completed my misery. _The blaze reportedly claimed the life of Anna McLain, 16, a high school junior. McLain was the winner of the recent Youth Centre talent show, and stated then that she was preparing to begin a musical career. _That did it. Tossing the paper aside, I ran as hard as I could back home and charged upstairs without speaking to anyone. I swung the door shut as I entered my bedroom and jumped onto my bed just as I heard the door _bang_ closed. As the sound echoed through the air, loud and final, I broke down crying as I never had before, even as a little kid. My mom tried to find out why I was so distraught, as did my sister, but I wasn't to be consoled. My friend...my _best _friend, the girl I loved, the girl I couldn't help, the free-spirited, passionate rocker girl, was gone.

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><p><strong>And there you have it. How was it? Good? Not-so-good? Lousy? Let me know! Please <strong>**read and maybe leave a review on your way out. This is my first fanfic of this nature, so I'd really like to see what everyone thinks. See ya!**


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